Freezer Meal: Sour Cream Noodle Bake

 I have so many friends that do the freezer meal 'thang.'  You know, set a day aside to chop, dice, grill, and bake?  I'm going to do that, I am...someday.  In the meantime, I've gone a different route this summer.  I typically have a little more time during the summer (though, even that statement is questionable these days), so I try to make more meals at home, or the fast food folks start to know my name, birthday, and approximate ketchup requirements.  BUT, I'm single, so if I make a meal I have to cut down the proportions (you don't know how many half eggs I've washed down the sink in my years, yes I know you can freeze them, but....).  This summer I bought some disposable pans from Dollar Tree (three for a dollar, which includes the lids).  I started making a meal, and baking half in a small pan, and putting the other half in the foil containers and freezing them.  This way I have a wide selection of meals ready to go now that the school year is in full swing.

 This go 'round I made The Pioneer Woman's Sour Cream Noodle Bake.  I'm just going to tag her recipe, and say....I added about twice as much cheese because...really do I need to explain why I added extra cheese?

 I did put a layer of syran wrap over the meal I'll pull off before baking.  I wrote on top with a permanent marker, and then I'll just put in in the fridge to thaw the night before I plan to make it.

This is definitely a meal that gets better the longer it sits together (let the seasonings marry), so freezing it is the perfect solution.

Cheesesteak Sandwich

How about a simple sandwich?  I've seen a ton of different recipes for cheese steak sandwiches, but I was intrigued by this one via thelittlekitchen because you wrap them up in foil and bake them to finish them off, and this really was a delicious and simple way to toast the break/get them all put together.  I'm hungry just typing this.  I definitely adapted the original recipe to simplify it for myself, and cut out the mushrooms.  Eww..mushrooms.  My recipe also made a hearty sandwiches, but...I may not be a meat lover, or maybe my bread was smaller b/c the original said it made 4.

Simple Cheese Steak Sandwiches

PRINT HERE

Ingredients:  4 hoagie roles, 4 slices of provolone cheese, 1 1/2 lb beef rib eye steaks, 1 med white onion, 1 green pepper, 2 T of butter.  

Instructions:

1.  Preheat over to 250.

2.  Slice vegetables.  Slice steak against the grain, and chop into smaller pieces.  Slice hoagie rolls in half.  

2.  Heat 1 T of butter in a pan and add sliced onions and peppers.  Cook until soft and onions are translucent.  

3.  Remove vegetables, heat another 1 T of butter, add steak.  Cook until browned.  Remove sauce (you can set it aside to add to sandwiches for flavor later if you want).  

4.  Add veggies to steak and divide evenly into hoagie rolls.  Add a slice of cheese on top.  Place each sandwich individually in a piece of foil.  Wrap tightly.  Cook at 250 for 15 minutes until cheese is melted.  

5.  If you don't eat them all, store them in a ziplock and pull out and reheat in the foil in the oven the next day until warmed through.  

Crockpot BBQ

In Texas, BBQ is not a process of cooking meat, it's an actual meat...that is cooked using a certain process.  This has confused me over the years when I've visited other states and they asked if I wanted BBQ...and I get chicken.  I'm OK with chicken,  but I just felt the need to iron out some confusion.
Despite my unusual love of BBQ (I'm not much on meat), I've never been able to conquer the flavor on my own, and I've tried over grills, slow roasted in ovens, but who knew-the crockpot was the key! 
Awhile back, the Dallas Morning News ran a recipe for slow-cooker Barbeque Beef. 
This is really easy, and really delicious.  I added some smokey BBQ to my sandwich, and it was pretty darn close to restaurant good! 
Ingredients: 
3 1/2 lb eye-of-round roast cut in half length wise
2 t. salt
2 garlic cloves, pressed
10 oz can condensed beef broth
1 c. ketchup
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. lemon juice
3 T. steak sauce
1 t. coarse ground pepper
1 t. Worcestershire
12 onion rolls
dill pickles
Instructions:  Sprinkle beef with 1/2 of salt.  Stir together all ingredients.  Pour half of the mix in the pot, add the beef, and cover the rest of the meat with the sauce.  Cook on high for 7 hours.  (I put this together the night before, and threw it on in the morning so it was ready at dinner).
 

Ribs-And a Plea to Texas

I was feeling a little guilty this week after confessing my love for Oklahoma. (I'm still thinking about taking up the offer to feed ducks at the Oklahoma family farm from Heidi ;o), but in the meantime...) I don't want to be kicked out of Texas (yet), so I tried out a recipe that screams 'Texas'...to me. I've never actually been a huge fan of ribs. I wouldn't say meat has a prominent place in my life. This is probably due to the fact that 'meat' came in the forms of casseroles when I was growing up. I like casseroles, but you can only eat so many between the age of 2-18. Therefore, I'm not terribly great at cooking large slabs of meat....I'm working on adding it in. Well, until I can get those people who make that food pyramid thingie to agree to place skittles under the 'fruit and vegetable category'....hello-five a day-there are five fruity flavors, coincidence? I think not! Such a teeny tiny request I have, and when it goes through-forget you meat. I'd taste the rainbow daily, and ribs and skittles just don't merge well. I got this recipe from my friend Sonia. Her husband is a grill master. He does a LOT of research, and a lot of trial and error, and then...when he's done trialing, and erroring, I go over for dinner. He makes ribs so great....that I now can't say 'I'm not really a fan' of ribs, I double heart these ribs. The original recipe comes from a book called Smoke and Spice and the official title is 'Dry Rub-Wild Willy's Number One-Derful Rub' I call it 'The first ribs I ever ate, and really liked.' I guess you can choose which title you like best if you decide to add them to your recipe book.
Mix 3/4 c. paprika, 1/4 c. freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 c. course salt (or kosher, or sea salt), 1/4 c. sugar, 2 T. chili powder, 2 T. garlic powder, 2 T. onion powder, 2 t. cayenne.
You can leave this mix in a jar to use...whenever, and it's enough to cover 3-4 racks of ribs, depending on how 'spicy' you want it to be.
I halved the recipe when I made them, and used the whole thing, but I'd probably cut back a little next time, it was very spicy with that much coating. I know there are a lot of smoking methods to meat, but I just slapped them on the grill over some charcoal for 6 hours, and they were falling off the bone great.